Three German Firms Team to Offer Protection Against Drones

Drones pose a serious security risk at major public events and also to high-risk infrastructures and facilities such as airports, industrial test sites, large plants, military sites and correctional facilities, especially in light of the fact that sales are booming and anyone can use them.

With this in mind, ESG Elektroniksystem und Logistik-GmbH, Diehl Defence and Rohde & Schwarz signed a cooperative agreement in the area of drone defense. Building on experience gained through their successful cooperation during both the 2015 G7 Summit in Elmau and the U.S. presidential trip to Hanover in 2016, the companies want to coordinate their efforts even more closely and provide fully customized, bundled solutions based on their proven expertise in the fields of radar, radiomonitoring, electromagnetic countermeasures, command and control information systems and position mapping.

The GUARDION drone defense system combines the scalable solutions customized to very specific customer requirements to reliably detect and defend against threats posed by the unauthorized use of drones. GUARDION is offered as an integrated product. It has a proven track record of reliable protection in various applications.

GUARDION focuses on integrating electronic detection, verification and countermeasures and connecting them to a position mapping and command and control tool. The HPEM counter-UAS effectors from Diehl Defence, R&S ARDRONIS from Rohde & Schwarz and the TARANIS command and control and position mapping system developed by ESG have proven their capabilities in operational use.

"Such deployment scenarios as well as experience gained elsewhere have confirmed our opinion that multiple intermeshed measures must be employed to ensure reliable protection against drones. The best way to meet this challenge is to integrate different, modular and scalable, cutting-edge technologies from various leading companies into a total solution," stated Christoph Weber, Head of Defence & Public Security at ESG, on behalf of the cooperation partners.

Dietmar Vahldiek, Executive Vice President Monitoring and Network Testing at Rohde & Schwarz, adds: "For many customers, it is important to receive early warning of potential threats. Detecting radio signals from remote control units therefore plays a key role. Security forces can respond even before the drone is in the air."

The trend toward increasingly intelligent drones also requires an effector that civil forces can use against autonomously flown systems, i.e. systems that are not dependent on radio signals or GPS for navigation. A significant countermeasure component in GUARDION is therefore the HPEM counter-UAS from Diehl. “Today, reliable protection against small airborne vehicles must function against both radio-controlled and autonomously flown objects,” added Helmut Rauch, Managing Director at Diehl Defence.